Planning a new computer

Pyrren · May 2, 2025

Budget (including currency): 400 - 500 USD (could be 600 as well)

Country: USA

Games, programs/workloads that it will be used for: TF2, Quake, Doom, Half Life (1 and 2), 1080p video watching, etc. (mainly TF2)

Other details: This is going to be an entirely new build. I plan on buying my GPU from Jawa or Facebook Marketplace. As for the computer, I may just buy a used Dell Optiplex and work off that. This is replacing my 11-year-old computer that is currently dying. (the CPU is failing, the GPU is failing, it sucks.) I already have speakers, a keyboard, a mouse, and my monitor. Speaking of my monitor. It is a 1080p 75Hz monitor. I was thinking of replacing the case and PSU as well. Could someone recommend to me a Dell Optiplex I should look out for, a GPU that would pair well with it, a case that works, and a PSU?

AndrewAsd · May 2, 2025

It's hard to recommend the newer optiplexes due to their weird proprietary fluff, like how the motherboard is some kind of freakish size as oppossed to something standard, and the connectors as well being non standard requiring adaptors to install a normal PSU, so moving the system into a new case and/or installing another PSU is a challenge. And it does seem like other OEMs like HP have also followed suit. Personally I'd look into 8th and 9th gen Intel stuff.

You can find motherboard and CPU bundles on ebay, sometimes with RAM as well for around 100$, and that puts you in a much better position than buying an optiplex. I'd recommend going for something like that instead of an optiplex. From there no need to worry about proprietary stuff, just pick a cheap case, or use an existing one, get a decent new PSU like a CX650 for around 70$ and a dual channel 16gb ram kit bare minimum and you can then get something like an RTX 2070 starting around 170$, 2080 starting around 200$, or many other GPUs out there that will be able to run near enough any game.